Halloween

There's been a lot of attention recently to this site http://www.mapsexoffenders.com/ . I've heard about it on the radio, had it e-mailed to me from friends at the dance studio, and found my sister talking about it on Friday night (she mapped her address and found that there are 2 sex offenders living in the same colony of complex buildings that she's in).

I think there is something to be said for information. Parents should be aware of the things that their kids are up against. Having taken a good deal of criminal justice related courses in my stint as a Sociology student, I've got to wonder what impact these kinds of things have on rehabilitation of criminals. I mean, they are sex offenders, they've done horrible things and (imo) don't deserve the same kinds of rights that other upstanding citizens should. At the same time, what's to be done about people like this? How hard is it to try and be productive in society when everywhere you go you're labeled? I'm really torn on this issue. Even though some may want to lock all criminals up and throw away the key forever, we just don't have the resources to do that kind of thing. So what do we do? This issue is one I'm particularly interested in, given that someone very close to me was a victim of scum such as these guys on mapsexoffenders.com .

There has been great attention to this site lately because of Halloween. There are a few issues that this brings to mind. First, remember when you went trick or treating as a kid WITH your parents? When we were really young Mom would take us to the few homes of relatives and neighbors nearby that we were friendly with. When we got a bit older she'd take us to a few more, though she'd always come along. As teens we started trick or treating alone, but Mom and Dad always made sure there was a large group of us. Are parents just too busy nowadays (I don't mean any of you all that are parents, I just mean in general) to do things WITH their kids? Or are there more perps? Or is it we just didn't know about all of the perps before?

I feel sad for the kids today that can't have as such a carefree halloween experience. I remember bundling up in coats, hats, gloves and scarfs, putting one of those old plastic costumes with the plastic mask over all of said warm things and walking with Mom around the neighborhood. We learned not to eat any candy until we got home so that Mom could inspect it all (don't want razorblades in apples or anything like this). Parents were cautious back then as they are now - have the evils just gotten more real, or more apparent?

I want to be a part of it

We finally booked our hotel for our December weekend in NYC. Waiting so long kind of limited our options as most things affordable in the city were booked and everything else was looking like $500 plus per night. As such, we'll be staying outside the city in lovely Secaucus, NJ at a hotel Brian's been at before for 501st events http://www.expedia.com/pub/agent.dll/qscr=dspv/htid=845/nojs=1/eapi=23708 . There is free parking there and easy buses into the city right there, so one can't really complain. Its also not quite the ghetto kind of place that Brian and I stayed at the last time in Jersey City (the Holland Motor Inn, complete with hourly rates, reliance on the PATH and bulletproof glass in the front office).

We have tickets to see Spamalot and the Rockettes and I really want to finally check out the Cloisters and see this exhibit at the MET: http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId=%7BB927CD20-71AD-4986-B346-66AE99B96BA4%7D . Of course, its also just a nice time of the year to be there with all of the lights and fancy window displays and such. I'm looking forward to introducing Brian to it all.

Whee! Now to e-mail the petsitter . . .